5 million policies cancelled in flyover country, no prob; "thousands" of elite in NYC is way different!

A couple of days ago the NY Times published a piece with the curiously vague headline "With Affordable Care Act, Canceled Policies for New York Professionals."  Here's the opening 'graf:

Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it. 

Well of course our reaction was, like, total shock.  I mean, who could have imagined that our wonderful president's "signature health-care legislation"--passed, it should be noted, without a single Republican vote--would force the cancellation of the valid, contractual health-insurance policies of "thousands" of New York’s professional and cultural elite?

I mean, everyone knows you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, so we knew that a paltry few-million unskilled, bitter clingers in flyover country might see their insurance cancelled, and might have to pay more to get comparable coverage under our brilliant leader's magnificent plan.  That was simply a price that had to be paid so that society could provide more equality in our horrible, horribly unequal country.  Because we Democrats and "progressives" really support equality.

A few of our less-enthusiastic friends even warned that a few thousand of the "professional and cultural 'elite'" in places like Dallas or Denver or Kansas City could have similar problems.  But of course those are flyover cities that probably don't even have resident theater companies, so, well.... Sad, but not a problem for us here in the Big Apple, right?

Of course we heard that there were mutterings from those awful Republicans that the "Affordable Care Act"--doesn't that just sound fabulous?--would force cancellation of policies in more than just the flyover states.  But of course no one believes Republicans here.  In fact we don't know any--except David Brooks at the Times--that reasonable fellow who wants to give our president more authority.

And in any case, the Times never printed a word about that possibility.  And if the Times doesn't publish it, it didn't happen.

So now to read in the One True Newspaper that...what was it?...thousands...of US are having our health insurance cancelled, is mystifying.  One simply does not know how to process that information.  It's as confusing as when the Democratic party was complaining about George Bush spying on our phone calls and all, and they implied that if we elected Barack it would stop.  And sure enough, after He was elected we didn't read a single story complaining about spying for four years--only to learn from that nice Snowden fellow that the spying was not only still happening, but was even worse.

So now we're...confused.  At least some of us.  But we're taking comfort from the *second* comment to the Times article noted above (view them as "oldest first" to see it):

I too was in favor of health care reform but this mess we've got is not doing the trick. I don't really blame Obama though. "Obamacare" is a misnomer, since he's stated more than once that he preferred a single payer program. That's what we need, instead of this mess the republicans gave us.

That's *so* good!  The world makes sense again--and just in time!  Because a) it's not his fault, since he said more than once that he really wanted "single-payer";  b) the current mess is the Republicans' fault, because they wouldn't support it the bill; and c) it's a misnomer to call it Obamacare--that's just a term coined by Rethuglican propagandists to try to discredit this wonderful, brilliantly-crafted law.

No, I don't think those sound like "talking points."  And why in the world would you suspect that it wasn't just coincidence that the *second* comment to the Times article would be such a magnificent defense of Obamaca--of the Affordable Care Act?

Honestly, you people are such conspiracy nuts!

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More precious comments to the Times article.  This exchange is typical:

Commenter 1:  Did anyone in the GOP know this and do anything to fix it or warn people?  Did journalists or other analysts know?  Answer: They either did not know or they deliberately ignored it when they might have done something to help. You tell me which is worse.

Commenter 2: Don't forget that we had to pass it to find out what was in it.  Now we know, and it's too late.

Commenter 1:  that's baloney. It is the job of the press and our representatives to know what is in the law and to inform the public.  [Like, oh, the Democrat who was then Speaker of the House--the person who arguably should have known most about the bill's bombs--whose "informing" of the public consisted of "We had to pass the bill to know what's in it"?] 
    I blame all sides including the press, but particularly resent people who claimed they knew something and now say "I told you so" when they provided no specifics at all and did not work to fix it.
    My point is apparently you/they just bought into the hateful "anti" rhetoric without knowing anything, just as much as others bought into the plus side of the law knowing only about that without knowing about the downsides.
    It is not too late, any law can be fixed and improved. You don't throw the baby out with the bath water. And "the sky is falling" or "crying wolf" is no way to lead or govern. You don't deserve to say "I told you so" when actually you didn't.  [Of course we *did,* but you never saw it in the NYT so as far as you know it didn't happen.]

Commenter 3:  It was a setup from the get-go.  Let the insurance companies have ample time to arrange the new packages while they cancelled the old--then blame it on the Democrats for instituting an essentially Republican health plan.

And notice how cleverly the Republicans managed to get the Dems to pass their nefarious scheme without a single Republican voting for it!  Now that's some real talent!

Commenter 4 (replying to C1):  The GOP and everyone that thought about this did know and tried to tell you. You accused us of being racists.  Senator Enzi actually read the "grandfathering clause" and introduced a bill in 2010 that would have actually allowed people who liked their existing plan to keep it. Every Democrat voted against it. Obama and the Democrats are liars.

Commenter 1:   It's possible that Enzi said something specific. But just about everything that was reported and said was generalized. The context in which "the warnings" were made was one of needing to repeal the entire thing - and it is an awful bill.
     It is not an awful bill [sic]. It would have been a mistake to repeal it. Pelosi might have been correct - in order for everyone to understand every ramification, the bill would have to be passed. I see no problem with that because then we can work on fixing it.  [Liberal idiocy in a nutshell--ram through ill-conceived, poorly-drafted crap law and *then* try to fix it!  This is really how they think!]  But better yet would have been for them to work together to fix one part of it (that Enzi or someone else might have pointed out), and everyone would have been much more highly respected. 

Well considering that when the Democrats rammed the thing into law they had majority control of both the house and senate, and easily defeated every single amendment the GOP proposed, hard to see how they could have fixed any defects they found, eh?

And as for "everyone" being more highly respected:  Again, every critical analysis of the damn thing was met with cries of "racist!" and "hater!"

Unfortunately for all of us, the utter fuckup that is Obamacare won't result in Democrats losing many seats--because there are just too many lo-fo voters (like Commenter 1 above) who are too fucking dumb to breathe without assistance, and will continue to vote Democrat no matter what.

And they will continue to have *lots* of children, who will be just as uneducated--by community consensus.